Hellebores
by Violet Ophelia
Summary: They thrive in the cold shade, but it doesn't mean they don't want to be seen. Only that they need enough courage to discover the Sun that was there the whole time. AU


Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you! Happy birthday **PinkSkullCrossbones**, happy birthday to you! Oh yeah, and Merry Christmas and all that as well. *guilt*

And as for it being unfinished... will be updated ASAP!!! Anyway, you get an awesome cliffhanger! Alright I admit it, this bit is kind of made of fail. It's going to get better, and you might even get a PLOT! Yes, I'll wait while you pick your jaw up from the floor.

I hope you like it!

---

Winter days were always the loneliest. The silence of hibernating animals, the naked branches of old trees dark against the ever cloudy sky.

Every season had a feeling to it, or so Roxas supposed.

Summer felt like the smell of chlorine swimming pools stinging your nose, and your eyes if your goggles sank to the bottom beyond your reach.

Spring felt like damp earth on your hands and feet as you scrambled around the garden, deep inside your own imagination.

Autumn felt like the red and yellow kite that had been stuck in a tree for years, torn by the ends of branches and small birds who had tried to use it for a nest but given up.

Winter felt like emptiness and sadness. He quietly knew that the angels in heaven he had been taught about at Sunday school didn't like winter either. What else could snow be, but their tears? It seemed unfair that their sorrow could be so beautiful, but Roxas didn't suppose many things were fair if you were an angel, only ever able to watch everything you left behind.

His Grandmother was an angel now. On the day she died it had snowed, as it was wont to do in early January. Roxas had cried with her, in the garden, hoping she noticed and was proud of his love for her. His mother soon snatched him back indoors, scolding him for standing in the snow without his wellington boots or coat, and telling him he was going to have a cold unless he was very lucky. The next morning the snow was gone and somehow he knew it was because his Grandmother had seen him.

However, his mother had been right. He had lost track of time, crying desperately into the sky the way he had, and he had been there long enough to get sick. He was confined to the house for until his small body recovered, only able to mutely stare out the window and watch snowflakes begin once again to fall.

--

"Remember he's smaller than you. Don't be rough, and don't be mean to him," Axel's older sister reminded him as she pulled his shockingly red hair into a hair band at the nape of his neck.

"Yup! Got it memorised!" he chirped, already excited at the prospect of having someone his own age to play in the snow with, and making Ariel laugh to herself and wonder just where he picked that catchphrase up from. Ariel was fun sometimes, but recently she'd been getting more and more busy with her schoolwork and her stupid boyfriend who tended to generally ignore Axel. Needless to say, he did not appreciate being ignored by the both of them, but there was really nothing he could do about it. Their mother was sick quite a lot, and anyway she had to work. Recently it had been daycare centres for him, and at five-nearly-six he was always the oldest kid there, always staring out the window and wishing he had someone sitting with him to make all these lonely feelings _go away_.

Roxas was the only child was one of his mother's friends, and once Axel cottoned on to the fact that he was indeed old enough to be a playmate, he had been over the moon... and soon after started nagging to meet him. Today was finally the day.

So full of happy energy that his sister had a hard time zipping up his coat and helping him with his gloves, he was already imagining how much fun he was going to have with his new friend. Snowball fights, hide-and-seek, tag, snowmen, snow angels... due to the weather, the list was even longer than the considerable amount of games he would normally want to play with Ariel.

"Ready to go?" the question had come from his mother, looking healthier today than she had for a while, maybe because of the fond smile on her face as she spoke to her son.

Axel grinned so hard he thought his mouth might snap.

--

Roxas was in his playroom. This in itself wasn't unusual: four and a half year old boys like to play with their toys a lot. What was unusual was that only one toy was out of its brightly coloured plastic bin against the wall, and Roxas wasn't even looking at it.

He was sitting on his legs and resting his forehead against the window he was mindlessly gazing out of. His breath had fogged up the glass so much that he couldn't really see through it, but that didn't seem to matter to him. He had a slight fever from his cold, and the chill of the glass against his face felt nice. Behind him lay a tiny toy dog, the right size to sit in the palm of one of his little hands. It was obviously handmade, but not because it was of poor quality. Rather, it looked too cherished and special to have ever been sewn together by unfeeling machines in a factory.

Roxas's father had brought it home last year after a business trip to another country, and had told his son a dramatic bedtime story about his heroic attempts to get Roxas the magic tiny dog that could protect its owner from bad dreams. Roxas had been suffering from nightmares at the time, but with the dog sitting on his pillow while he slept, he had had an empty, dreamless sleep for the first time in almost a month.

Amazingly, he hadn't had a nightmare for almost that whole year. But it hadn't worked last night. He'd dreamt that his Grandmother was still alive, and was downstairs cooking him breakfast the way she always did when he stayed with his grandparents. He walked downstairs to talk to her, only to see she had disappeared, the oven and frying pan still on. All he could do was scream as it all caught fire around him and the flames slowly burnt him to a crisp.

He had long since calmed down from the crying, shaking mess he had been when waking up, but he hadn't spoken all day, despite his mother's best efforts.

At the sound of two car doors slamming he turned to face the door as if he wanted to investigate, but after a few seconds went back to his previous position of face against the glass.

The sound of the front door opening, then feet stomping on the mat to rid shoes of clinging snow didn't make him look round. Neither did the sound of his mother talking to another woman in the hallway, or footsteps treading up the carpeted stairs.

He brought one hand up and gently wiped the condensation from the window, so he could see outside more clearly. The whole garden was covered in a thick blanket of snow, and more was continuing to fall. It was perfectly untouched, with no footprints anywhere in sight.

"Are you Roxas?"

---

As I said at the beginning, this will be updated as soon as possible, but I am very prone to writers block and I have a week of exams coming up. Yay revision. D:

I'll try my hardest to not leave you hanging! At least, in a way, I hope it did, rather than you thinking 'Yay, look, it's over!!' Then again, if you thought that, you won't be wanting the update. Shame on hypothetical you. D:


End file.
